fabric lumps of the world

The garment industry is in crisis with giant piles of discarded clothing appearing in various locations across the globe; almost exclusively impacting some of the world's lowest wage economies.

My approach to fashion and life in general has changed over the past year, I guess I kind of had a moment of realisation, during which I vowed to no longer purchase new clothes. Why? Because to put it bluntly, there is enough sh*t in the world and making more clothing and fabric feels ridiculous to me now, when so much already exists.

We live in a fast world that needs to slow down.


(a photo of an amazing quote on yet another mass produced mug, which is really creating inner conflict for me)

The Apprentice - My Dream Task, Interior Design

This week's episode of the Apprentice was honestly my idea of absolute bliss. I'm so incredibly jealous of these people; being given a £13,000 budget to design a luxury hotel room would be an absolute dream! I thought both teams designed tasteless, low-rent hotel rooms, both felt immature and impractical.

I feel both teams made a real error in their choice of themes; the girls chose Golf as their theme and the boys went with a British Travel theme. By choosing a straight forward theme like this you can so easily create a cliche, themed room which doesn't fit the luxury brief. Before choosing a theme I feel the teams would have benefited from setting a short list of key values to bare in mind when designing and buying. An obvious theme isn't a necessity in a task like this; if anything, choosing such a blatant theme is a bit of a cop out. For a luxury room, I feel an obvious path to take would be luxury textiles; it's so easy to choose a small selection of key, quality pieces to fill a tastefully decorated room.

The candidates failed to consider the orange carpets covering the room floors; these should have influenced their colour palettes. Both teams' ideas have the potential to be successful; the boys would have benefited greatly from a refined colour palette and a stronger sense of direction. Designing a room isn't "We're making a British Travel themed room, we should put Big Ben on the wall" you need to understand the feel of the room and remember the brief. When looking at a British theme, on a budget, for a one of task on the Apprentice, it seems obvious to choose simple colours like a neutral base for all of your walls, maybe adding a tasteful feature wall if you're feeling adventurous. The boys splashed out on expensive furniture but it was in-cohesive and felt so childish, especially next to the primary coloured walls. 

For the Golf themed room, creating a rich room filled with leathers and velvet in deep luxurious colours and using rustic metals and dark wood, to create a room so luxurious its guests won't question the hotel's quality. Surprisingly, I didn't think their idea of using a gold bag and clubs as a feature piece was a bad idea; but it was executed terribly. A dark brown, vintage or vintage style golf bag, on a stand would have looked tasteful. I'm thinking some heavy curtains to balance out the fire place and a whisky cabinet; people are coming here to have a relaxing time after all.

Another simple option would have been for the teams to go for an all white, clean, elegant room with a key statement colour to tie in the carpet and any wood/metals used. Then they could have focused on getting some cool, functional additions for the room.

Another very easy option is to go all out comfort and really prioritise getting a statement bead a multiple layers of gorgeous, luxurious bedding. Adding large, well made arm chairs, a vintage, dark-wood chest filled with faux furs and tartan blankets and filling the fireplace with logs would have created a warm British feel but in a more tasteful, subtle way.

There were endless possibilities on this task and although I appreciate this is not their area of interest or expertise, I feel the opportunity was wasted on the contestants. Hopefully Lord Sugar will read this and hire me instead.

Graffiti Sucks Like Deep Throat

Barcelona is such a creative city; many of the streets are adorned with graffiti, as are many streets across the globe. What struck me about Barcelona is the way in which graffiti is slowly moving towards being an accepted art form in society. Many stores have picked up on this and are using graffiti to advertise their brand. Whilst there were some horrendous pieces, the majority of the street art in Barcelona is well or interestingly executed. Some of the pieces below aren't the best but I live for that contrast of modern graffiti against the traditional, detailed elements of a building.

Drowning in commercialism

I recently returned from a trip to Barcelona with my family and I gathered so much inspiration for my uni work, it really motivated me for my, fast-approaching, second year at Nottingham Trent University. Walking through the beautiful streets of Barcelona made me feel so sad; I constantly look for interesting and beautiful visuals and it reminded how tasteless advertising is in the UK. How much more beautiful would the world be if it weren’t plastered with tacky advertising campaigns and plastic KFC. In cities like Barcelona you really notice things like fast food restaurants; with their plastic signs detracting from the beauty of Barcelona’s incredible architecture. 

International, commercial companies are slowly diminishing diversity among the world’s capital cities, if not entire countries. I’m finding it difficult to articulate but I feel like every country is unique and full of history and plastering these incredible places with modern, commercialism is almost disrespectful. As a promotion student, I appreciate brands have to constantly reach out to consumers, but there are more aesthetically pleasing and considerate ways to do this. For example, using unique stone signs on the sides of historical buildings instead of slapping on a standard logo in primary colours. These tasteless advertising methods reek of desperation (a nice Clueless quote for you right there); the companies don’t care that their signs are ugly because at least someone is looking at them. By designing retail spaces with a country’s history and values in mind, the in-store experience will be improved for the consumer and will be beneficial in regards to tourism. 

The Gypsy Shrine @ Ibiza Rocks TS5 Pool Party

I'm currently powering through a serious case of the post-holiday blues after spending 4 amazing nights in Ibiza. We stayed at the Ibiza Rocks Hotel and packed so much into those 4 days! All guests at the hotel are given free access to the hotel events, lucky for us this included Craig David's first pool party of the season. Whilst we were naturally so excited for Craig David (I also have to say Patrick Nazemi's set was soooo good), we were also really happy to see The Gypsy Shrine team offering face/body glitter. Me being even more thrilled than most, as the girls helped me cover the previous day's sunburn - welcome to the life of a redhead! I've been watching The Gypsy Shrine as an up and coming brand for a few months now; I think they've really identified a gap in the market. Whilst there are countless festival based brands circulating at the moment, none do it quite like TGS. The brand understand their consumer so well and have successfully utilised social media to gain a strong following amongst young people. They also really understand where their brand works, but I feel they'll need to keep evolving as trends begin to shift. The brand working with the insanely popular tv show, Love Island was an incredible opportunity for the brand and I'm sure they'll only grow in strength as a result. It will be interesting to see if the brand have any ideas for winter!

http://www.thegypsyshrine.com/shop/

Street Style Edit - Wireless Fest

I've been meaning to write a street style post for a few weeks, featuring some of my favourite looks I saw at wireless Festival earlier this month. Finsbury Park was full of amazing outfits, but these lovely people were kind enough to let me take some quick photos of theirs!

These two babes were like real life Cindy dolls and I'm a sucker for any outfit you can picture on a young Britney Spears - trousers are from ASOS. 

The British weather combined with me drinking from 10am kind of ruined this photo.. Both guys were wearing really cool vintage shirts (especially the guy on the right) - I saw a lot of seriously ugly, desperate shirts in that park but these guys nailed it. 

It's super difficult to see, but the lady on the right had the most gorgeous outfit on - I think she was feeling a bit face shy! She was wearing a lace body with a floor length mesh skirt and chunky sandals. I also loved both girls' incredible hair, they looked stunning and classy. Not ideal if you're planning on clawing your way to the stage barrier, but so pretty if you're having a chilled day.

This little lady had the prettiest hair jewellery - I'm so weak for french plaits on a festival look! Her whole outfit was perfectly planned.

By far my favourite person I met at Wireless, she'd come all the way from New Zealand! I saw these skirts EVERYWHERE in Ibiza this year, but not so much at U.K. festivals. Her cornrows/braids felt so Xtina, again, I love a pop princess. I liked that this girl was having the best time and she 100% knew how bomb she looked!

I'm so annoyed I didn't get a better photo of these ladies; they were both so sparkley, I ran at them like a literal magpie. I was mainly interested in the lady on the right; her sequin body and body-chain combo looked perfect - body-chain from In The Style. 

Numbers Don't Lie - Fenty X Puma

I'm in love with Puma right now. I can't get enough of their new style and I'm having to exhibit some next level self restraint right now because I could easily spend hundreds on their clothes. I have a thing for the Men's Sale section on ASOS (guys do not take advantage of their amazing sale section) and I've found a few Puma jumpers recently for some criminally low prices. I just feel like Puma really deserve to be screamed and shouted about right now; for me, they're nailing it. I came across an Instagram post the other day from the Fenty X Puma account, suggesting Rihanna's contributions as Puma's Creative Director are behind their recent increase in popularity. Influencers are key right now for most fashion brands and most seem to recognise this - Rihannah is a prime example. In 2014 it was announced that Rihannah would be taking on this role and, although I've not checked the financial side of things, the past few years have seen Puma producing really on trend, exciting garments.